Electronic system and method for transaction processing

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure generally relates to an electronic system, a computerized method, and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions for processing a transaction between a consumer and a merchant with a payment instrument of the consumer selected for the merchant. The system comprises a server configured for performing steps of the method comprising: receiving, from an acquirer financial institution for the merchant, details of the transaction and a common virtual payment token, the transaction details comprising details of the merchant; retrieving, from a consumer database, identification details of a set of consumer payment instruments associated with the common virtual payment token; selecting, from the set of consumer payment instruments, the consumer payment instrument for the merchant based on the merchant details; retrieving, from the consumer database, payment details of the selected consumer payment instrument; and processing the transaction with the selected consumer payment instrument, said transaction processing comprising communicating, to an issuer financial institution for the selected consumer payment instrument, the transaction details and the payment details of the selected consumer payment instrument.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to Singaporean Application Serial No.10201805348U, filed Jun. 21, 2018, which is incorporated herein byreference in its entirety

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure generally relates to an electronic system andmethod for processing a transaction between a consumer and a merchant.Particularly, the present disclosure describes various embodiments of anelectronic system and method for processing the transaction, e.g. anonline or retail transaction, with a payment instrument of the consumerselected for the merchant.

BACKGROUND

Consumers often own multiple payment instruments, e.g. credit cards anddebit cards, to cater to their varying spending needs. For example,consumers prefer to use certain credit cards of certain issuer banks fortransactions with certain merchants due to promotional offers arrangedbetween the merchants and the issuer banks. These promotional offers mayinclude rewards, rebates, and discounts. Consumers may also prefer usingdifferent credit cards for different types of purchases, possibly forease of tracking their spending. For example, consumers may use aCitibank credit card for purchasing petrol, SBI credit card for retailpurchases, and HDFC® credit card for transactions at restaurants. Aconsumer holding multiple payment instruments will need to carry most,if not all, the payment instruments whenever he/she is outside, becausehe/she is unlikely to be able to predict the types of transactionshe/she will make throughout the day. The consumer will also need toremember which payment instruments have promotional offers for whichmerchants. The consumer may end up using a payment instrument fortransacting with a merchant that has no promotional offer compared toanother payment instrument the consumer has on hand.

Therefore, in order to address or alleviate at least one of theaforementioned problems and/or disadvantages, there is a need to providean improved electronic system and method for transaction processing.

SUMMARY

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, there is an electronicsystem, a computerized method, and a non-transitory computer-readablestorage medium comprising instructions for processing a transactionbetween a consumer and a merchant with a payment instrument of theconsumer selected for the merchant. The system comprises a serverconfigured for performing steps of the method comprising: receiving,from an acquirer financial institution for the merchant, details of thetransaction and a common virtual payment token, the transaction detailscomprising details of the merchant; retrieving, from a consumerdatabase, identification details of a set of consumer paymentinstruments associated with the common virtual payment token; selecting,from the set of consumer payment instruments, the consumer paymentinstrument for the merchant based on the merchant details; retrieving,from the consumer database, payment details of the selected consumerpayment instrument; and processing the transaction with the selectedconsumer payment instrument, said transaction processing comprisingcommunicating, to an issuer financial institution for the selectedconsumer payment instrument, the transaction details and the paymentdetails of the selected consumer payment instrument.

An electronic system and method for transaction processing according tothe present disclosure are thus disclosed herein. Various features,aspects, and advantages of the present disclosure will become moreapparent from the following detailed description of the embodiments ofthe present disclosure, by way of non-limiting examples only, along withthe accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an illustration of an electronic system for transactionprocessing, in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustration of a computerized method performed ona server for transaction processing, in accordance with embodiments ofthe present disclosure.

FIG. 3A is a flowchart illustration of a consumer registrationprocedure, in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3B is a table exemplifying registration details from the consumerregistration procedure, in accordance with embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 3C is another table exemplifying registration details from theconsumer registration procedure, in accordance with embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of a computerized method fortransaction processing, in accordance with embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustration of the technical architecture ofthe server, in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the present disclosure, depiction of a given element or considerationor use of a particular element number in a particular figure or areference thereto in corresponding descriptive material can encompassthe same, an equivalent, or an analogous element or element numberidentified in another figure or descriptive material associatedtherewith. The use of “/” in a figure or associated text is understoodto mean “and/or” unless otherwise indicated. For purposes of brevity andclarity, descriptions of embodiments of the present disclosure aredirected to an electronic system and method for transaction processing,in accordance with the drawings. While aspects of the present disclosurewill be described in conjunction with the embodiments provided herein,it will be understood that they are not intended to limit the presentdisclosure to these embodiments. On the contrary, the present disclosureis intended to cover alternatives, modifications and equivalents to theembodiments described herein, which are included within the scope of thepresent disclosure as defined by the appended claims. Furthermore, inthe following detailed description, specific details are set forth inorder to provide a thorough understanding of the present disclosure.However, it will be recognized by an individual having ordinary skill inthe art, i.e. a skilled person, that the present disclosure may bepracticed without specific details, and/or with multiple details arisingfrom combinations of aspects of particular embodiments. In a number ofinstances, known systems, methods, procedures, and components have notbeen described in detail so as to not unnecessarily obscure aspects ofthe embodiments of the present disclosure.

Overview

In representative or exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure,there is an electronic system 10 for processing a transaction between aconsumer 12 and a merchant 14 with a payment instrument 16 of theconsumer 12 selected for the merchant 14, as illustrated in FIG. 1. Thesystem 10 includes an intermediary financial entity 20, one or moreissuer financial institutions 30, and one or more acquirer financialinstitutions 40. The system 10 further includes a server 100 operated bythe intermediary financial entity 20. The system 10 further includes apayment network 50 communicatively connecting or linking theintermediary financial entity 20, issuer financial institutions 30, andacquirer financial institutions 40 to one another. Particularly, each ofthe issuer financial institutions 30 and acquirer financial institutions40 operates its own computer processors/servers that are communicativelylinked to the server 100 via the payment network 50. The payment network50 may be operated by a payment network operator, such as Mastercard® orVisa®.

The system 10 includes an electronic device 150 of the consumer 12. Amobile application is executable on the consumer electronic device 150to operate a digital wallet 152. The digital wallet 152 is linked to oneor more payment instruments 16 of the consumer 12, such thattransactions made using the digital wallet 152 are paid with theconsumer payment instruments 16. A consumer payment instrument 16 isissued by an issuer financial institution 40 and which the consumer 12may use to pay for transactions. As will be described in more detailbelow, the digital wallet 152 is linked to a common virtual paymenttoken 18 that is associated, by the consumer 12, with one or moreconsumer payment instruments 16. The system 10 further includes aconsumer database 60 storing details of consumer payment instruments 16and common virtual payment tokens 18.

Further with reference to FIG. 2, there is shown a computer-implementedor computerized method 200 implemented on the server 100 for processinga transaction between a consumer 12 and a merchant 14. The consumer 12activates the digital wallet 152 on the consumer electronic device 150to pay for the transaction with the merchant 14. Specifically, theconsumer electronic device 150 is communicable with a merchant billingmachine or point-of-sale (POS) terminal of the merchant 14. Instead ofdetails of a consumer payment instrument 16, the consumer electronicdevice 150 communicates a common virtual payment token 18 that is storedon the digital wallet 152. The merchant POS terminal then communicatesthe common virtual payment token, together with details of thetransaction, to the acquirer financial institution 40 for the merchant14.

In a step 202 of the method 200, a data communication component/module100 a of the server 100 receives, from the acquirer financialinstitution 40, the transaction details and the common virtual paymenttoken. The transaction details include the transaction amount anddetails of the merchant 14, such as merchant identifier and/or merchantcategory codes. In a step 204, a data retrieval component/module 100 bof the server 100 retrieves, from the consumer database 60,identification details of a set of consumer payment instruments 16associated with the common virtual payment token 18.

Using the digital wallet 152, the set of consumer payment instruments 16is selected by the consumer 12 and associated with the common virtualpayment token 18. A tokenization component/module 100 c of the server100 tokenizes the consumer payment instruments 16 and generates thecommon virtual payment token 18. Various conditions are also determinedby the consumer 12 such that each consumer payment instrument 16 isuseable for specific merchant(s) 14. In a step 206, a selectioncomponent/module 100 d of the server 100 selects, from the set ofconsumer payment instruments 16, the consumer payment instrument 16 forthe merchant 14 based on the merchant details. For example, the selectedconsumer payment instrument 16 is useable for merchants 14 with specificmerchant category codes, and the merchant 14 in this transactionsatisfies this condition.

In a step 208, the data retrieval component 100 b retrieves, from theconsumer database 60, payment details of the selected consumer paymentinstrument 16. In a step 210, a transaction processing component/module100 e of the server 100 processes the transaction with the selectedconsumer payment instrument 16. Specifically, in the step 210, theserver 100 communicates, to the issuer financial institution 30 for theselected consumer payment instrument 16, the transaction details and thepayment details of the selected consumer payment instrument 16. It willbe appreciated that transaction is subsequently processed by the issuerfinancial institution 30 and through the payment network 50 in astandard manner readily understood by the skilled person.

Therefore, with the system 10 and method 200, the consumer 12 canconveniently use different consumer payment instruments 16 fortransactions with different merchants 14. Furthermore, the consumer 12does not have to carry multiple payment instruments 16 whenever he/sheis outside, since the payment instruments 16 can be associated with acommon virtual payment token 18 that is linked to the digital wallet152.

Description of Embodiments

In various embodiments of the present disclosure, the electronic system10 includes the intermediary financial entity 20 operating the server100, one or more issuer financial institutions 30 operating one or moreissuer servers, and one or more acquirer financial institutions 40operating one or more acquirer servers. The server 100 includes aprocessor, a data storage device or memory configured to storecomputer-readable instructions for processing thereby, and a datacommunication component/module 100 a for communicating with one or moreother data communication components and/or computing systems/servers. Itwill be appreciated that an issuer financial institution 30 issuespayment instruments 16, e.g. credit cards, to consumers 12 who arecustomers of the issuer financial institution 30.

The system 10 is configured for processing a transaction between aconsumer 12 and a merchant 14 with a consumer payment instrument 16selected for the merchant 14. The term “payment instrument” may refer toany suitable cashless payment mechanism, such as payment cards. The term“payment card” may refer to a credit card, debit card, or charge cardwhich the consumer may use to pay for transactions. In addition topayment cards, the payment instruments 16 may include, but are notlimited to, membership cards, promotional cards, frequent flyer cards,identification cards, gift cards, and/or any other payment cards thatmay hold payment card information and which may be storedelectronically, such as on the digital wallet 152 of the consumerelectronic device 150.

The consumer electronic device 150 may be a mobile device, such asmobile phone, smartphone, personal digital assistant (PDA), tablet,laptop, or computer. As described above, there is a mobile applicationthat is executable on the consumer electronic device 150 to operate thedigital wallet 152. The mobile application communicates/cooperates witha host application of the digital wallet 152. The mobile applicationprovides a user interface accessible by the consumer 12 with theconsumer electronic device 150 to operate the digital wallet 152. In oneembodiment, the digital wallet 152 is provided by the intermediaryfinancial entity 20, and the host application is stored on the server100 or on a separate cloud computing system communicatively linked tothe server 100. For example, the host application is provided byMastercard® in the form of the Mastercard Digital Enablement Service(MDES). In another embodiment, the digital wallet 152 is provided by anissuer financial institution 30, and the host application is stored on aserver or computing system thereof that is communicable with the server100. In another embodiment, the digital wallet 152 is provided by thirdparty service provider, and the host application is stored on a serveror computing system thereof that is communicable with the server 100.

The consumer 12 may first enroll or register with the intermediaryfinancial entity 20 via the digital wallet 152 to tokenize the consumerpayment instruments 16. FIG. 3A illustrates a consumer registrationprocedure or method 300 for tokenizing the consumer payment instruments16. In a step 302, the consumer 12 executes the digital wallet 152 onthe consumer electronic device 150. In a step 304, the consumer 12provides registration details of a set of consumer payment instruments16 to the digital wallet 152. In many embodiments, the consumer paymentinstruments 16 are credit cards and the registration details includepayment details that enable processing of payments from the consumerpayment instruments 16.

For example, the registration details include the names of the issuerfinancial institutions 30, credit card numbers, expiry dates, creditcard security codes, and names on the credit cards. The registrationdetails further include at least one merchant identifier and/or at leastone merchant category code for each consumer payment instrument 16. Themerchant identifiers may relate to the type of establishment of themerchant (e.g. restaurant or retail) restaurant and/or the name of themerchant (e.g. Flipkart). For example, the consumer 12 may prefer oneconsumer payment instrument 16 for purchasing fuel and another consumerpayment instrument 16 for retail shopping. The consumer 12 may alsochoose a default consumer payment instrument 16 for transactions withmerchants 14 that do not belong to any of the other merchant identifiersand/or merchant category codes.

In some embodiments, the consumer 12 does not know the exact merchantidentifiers and/or merchant category codes acceptable in the consumerregistration procedure 300. To address this, the consumer registrationprocedure 300 includes a step wherein the server 100 communicates, tothe consumer electronic device 150, a plurality of merchant identifiersand/or merchant category codes for selection by the consumer 12.Specifically, the consumer 12 will be able to allocate the merchantidentifiers and/or merchant category codes to the consumer paymentinstruments 16 in the registration details.

FIG. 3B illustrates a table exemplifying registration details of theconsumer payment instruments 16 a-d, such as credit cards. It can beseen that each consumer payment instrument 16 is associated with a setof merchant identifiers and/or merchant category codes, and isselectable based on the merchant identifiers and/or merchant categorycodes. In one example as shown in FIG. 3B, a first consumer paymentinstrument 16 a is a credit card issued by Citibank. The first consumerpayment instrument 16 a will be selected for transactions with a firstset of the merchants 14 that are fuel-related, such as gas stations. Thefirst set of merchants 14 correspond to a first set of merchantidentifiers and/or merchant category codes for fuel, such as 5542(Automated Fuel Dispensers) and 5983 (Fuel Dealers (Non-Automotive)). Inanother example as shown in FIG. 3B, a second consumer paymentinstrument 16 b is a credit card issued by HDFC Bank. The secondconsumer payment instrument 16 b will be selected for transactions witha second set of the merchants 14 for restaurants. The second set ofmerchants 14 correspond to a second set of merchant identifiers and/ormerchant category codes for restaurants, such as 5812 (Eating Places,Restaurants) and 5814 (Fast Food Restaurants). In yet another example asshown in FIG. 3B, a default consumer payment instrument 16 d, which is acredit card issued by HSBC Bank, will be selected for transactions withmerchants 14 that do not belong to any of the other merchant identifiersand/or merchant category codes. It will be appreciated that the merchantcategory codes are in accordance with the ISO 8583 standard.

In a step 306, the server 100 receives, from the consumer electronicdevice 150, the registration details of the set of consumer paymentinstruments 16 provided by the consumer 12. The registration details arestored on the consumer database 60. The consumer database 60 may residelocally on the server 100, or alternatively on a remote server orcomputer communicatively linked to the server 100.

In some embodiments, there is a step 308 wherein the tokenizationcomponent 100 c of the server 100 generates a virtual payment instrumenttoken for each consumer payment instrument 16. Tokenization of theconsumer payment instruments 16 replaces sensitive data of the consumerpayment instruments 16 with secure surrogate data in the form of thetokens. The virtual payment instrument tokens may be referred to as thefirst virtual tokens that are unique to each consumer payment instrument16. In a step 310, the server 100 generates the common virtual paymenttoken 18. In a step 312, the server 100 associates the set of consumerpayment instruments 16 with the common virtual payment token 18. Thecommon virtual payment token 18 may thus be referred to as the secondvirtual token that is common to or shared among all the consumer paymentinstruments 16 provided by the consumer 12. FIG. 3C illustrates a tableexemplifying details of the tokens, which are also stored on theconsumer database 60.

In a step 314, the server 100 communicates the common virtual paymenttoken 18 to the consumer electronic device 150 for storing on thedigital wallet 152. Optionally, the server 100 also communicates thevirtual payment instrument tokens to the consumer electronic device 150.The consumer 12 will be able to view registration details of theconsumer payment instruments 16 as well as details of the tokens via thedigital wallet 152. Furthermore, the consumer 12 may update the set ofconsumer payment instruments 16, such as to revise the merchantidentifiers and merchant category codes, as well as to remove or addconsumer payment instruments 16.

In various embodiments with reference to FIG. 4, there is acomputer-implemented or computerized method 400 implemented on thesystem 10 for processing a transaction between the consumer 12 and amerchant 14. For example, the merchant 14 is a retail shop and theconsumer 12 is making payment for purchases at the retail shop. In astep 402, the consumer 12 executes the mobile application on theconsumer electronic device 150 to activate the digital wallet 152.Instead of selecting any particular consumer payment instrument 16 tomake payment, the consumer 12, in a step 404, selects the common virtualpayment token 18 stored on the digital wallet 152. In a step 406, theconsumer electronic device 150 communicates the common virtual paymenttoken 18 to the merchant 14. In one embodiment, the merchant 14 operatesa merchant billing machine or POS terminal at the merchant premises andwhich is communicable with the consumer electronic device 150.Communication between the consumer electronic device 150 and merchantPOS terminal may occur via standard communication protocols, such asnear field communication (NFC). The common virtual payment token 18 issubsequently communicated from the merchant POS terminal to a merchantserver or computing system.

In a step 408, the merchant 14 communicates, through the payment network50 to the acquirer financial institution 40 for the merchant 14, detailsof the transaction and the common virtual payment token 18.Specifically, the merchant server communicates the transaction detailsand common virtual payment token 18 to a computer processor/server ofthe acquirer financial institution 40.

In a step 410, the acquirer financial institution 40 communicates, tothe server 100, the transaction details and common virtual payment token18. In accordance with the ISO 8583 standard, the transaction detailsinclude the transaction amount and details of the merchant 14. Themerchant details include an identifier and one or more merchant categorycodes of the merchant 14. Furthermore, the transaction details include adata element indicating that a virtual token, i.e. the common virtualpayment token 18, is provided instead of a real payment instrument 16like a credit card for payment of the transaction. The data elementinforms the intermediary financial entity 20 that the common virtualpayment token 18 is to be mapped to the consumer payment instruments 16associated therewith, as further described below.

In a step 412, the server 100 searches the consumer database 60 toidentify the common virtual payment token 18. Upon identification, in astep 414, the data retrieval component 100 b of the server 100retrieves, from the consumer database 60, identification details of theset of consumer payment instruments 16 associated with the commonvirtual payment token 18. The identification details include identifiersof each consumer payment instrument 16, such as the virtual paymentinstrument tokens or first virtual tokens, as well as the merchantidentifiers and/or merchant category codes for each consumer paymentinstrument 16.

In a step 416, the selection component 100 d of the server 100 selects,from the set of consumer payment instruments 16, the consumer paymentinstrument 16 for the merchant 14 based on the merchant details.Different consumer payment instruments 16 are selected for transactionsat different merchants with different merchant identifiers and/ormerchant category codes. A first consumer payment instrument 16 linkedto the common virtual payment token 18 is selected for a first merchant14 having a first merchant identifier and a first set of merchantcategory codes. A second consumer payment instrument 16 linked to thecommon virtual payment token 18 is selected is selected for a secondmerchant 14 having a second merchant identifier and a second set ofmerchant category codes.

For example, the transaction occurs at a gas station and the consumer 12is purchasing fuel from the merchant 14 operating the gas station. Themerchant details will indicate that the merchant supplies fuel (i.e. isfuel-related) and include the merchant category codes 5542 and/or 5983.Based on the merchant details and the details of the set of consumerpayment instruments 16 as shown in FIG. 3C, the first consumer paymentinstrument 16, which is the Citibank credit card, is selected as themerchant details satisfy the conditions configured for the firstconsumer payment instrument 16 a. Accordingly, in the step 416, thefirst consumer payment instrument 16 a is selected for payment of thetransaction. In another example, the transaction occurs at a restaurantand the merchant category code is 5812 (Eating Places, Restaurants). Thesecond consumer payment instrument 16 b, which is the HDFC Bank creditcard, is selected as the merchant details satisfy the conditionsconfigured for the HDFC Bank credit card. Accordingly, in the step 416,the second consumer payment instrument 16 b is selected for payment ofthe transaction.

In a step 418, the data retrieval component 100 b of the server 100retrieves, from the consumer database 60, payment details of theselected consumer payment instrument 16. The payment details refer toreal details of the selected consumer payment instrument 16 forprocessing payments from the selected consumer payment instrument 16.For example, if the selected consumer payment instrument 16 is a creditcard, the details include the credit card number, expiry date, securitycode, and name of the credit card owner, i.e. the consumer 12. It willbe appreciated that payment details of the selected consumer paymentinstrument 16 are in accordance with the ISO 8583 standard such thatpayment for the transaction can be processed through the payment network50 subsequently.

In a step 420, the transaction processing component 100 e of the server100 begins processing the transaction with the selected consumer paymentinstrument 16. Said transaction processing includes a step 422 ofcommunicating a payment transaction request through the payment network50 to the issuer financial institution 30 for the selected consumerpayment instrument 16. The payment transaction request is fortransferring the transaction amount from the selected consumer paymentinstrument 16 to a financial account of the merchant 14, such as a bankaccount held at the acquirer financial institution 40. The paymenttransaction request includes the transaction details and the paymentdetails of the selected consumer payment instrument 16.

Subsequently, the issuer financial institution 30 communicates with thepayment network 50 to process the transaction to transfer thetransaction amount. It will be appreciated that the payment network 50processes the transaction across the issuer financial institution 30 andacquirer financial institution 40 in a standard manner readily known tothe skilled person.

In some embodiments, issuer financial institutions 30 may collaboratewith merchants 14 to provide promotional offers to consumers 12. In oneexample, Flipkart may offer a 10% discount off on Big Billion Day iftransactions are paid with a consumer payment instrument 16 issued byCitibank. In another example, Citibank may offer a 2% cash rebate forall transactions with merchants 14 using Citibank's payment instruments16 during a predefined duration or time period, such as the Christmasholiday season.

The issuer financial institutions 30 communicate with the intermediaryfinancial entity 20 to provide details of the promotional offers.Specifically, the server 100 receives, from one or more issuer financialinstitutions 30, details of one or more promotional offers agreed withthe issuer financial institutions 30. The details of each promotionaloffer may include a duration of the promotional offer and/or details ofeligible merchants 14 in the promotional offer. In one example, the BigBillion Day promotional offer by Citibank has Flipkart as an eligiblemerchant 14 and the duration follows that of the Big Billion Day. Inanother example, the promotional offer of cash rebate by Citibank hasthe duration following the Christmas holiday season, such as from 1 to31 December. In yet another example, the promotional offer does not haveany duration, i.e. is ongoing until termination by the merchant 14 orissuer financial institution 30.

The server 100 then updates the consumer database 60 with the details ofthe promotional offers. It will be appreciated that such updating isdynamic in nature as and when an issuer financial institution 30communicates promotional offer details with the intermediary financialentity 20. After updating the consumer database 60, the server 100communicates an update message to the consumer electronic device 150 toinform the consumer 12 that there are updates to the promotional offers.The consumer 12 will be able to retrieve details of the promotionaloffers for his/her payment instruments 16 using the digital wallet 152.Based on the promotional offer details, the consumer 12 may prefer touse different payment instruments 16 for the various merchants 14.

Referring to the Big Billion Day example, if the consumer 12 knows thathe/she will be making purchases with Flipkart, the consumer 12 mayallocate the first consumer payment instrument 16 a, which is theCitibank credit card, as the preferred payment instrument 16 fortransactions with Flipkart. In another example, if Citibank is offeringa 2% cash rebate for all transactions, the consumer 12 may change thedefault payment instrument 16 d to the first consumer payment instrument16 a or Citibank credit card. The consumer 12 may even choose to use thefirst consumer payment instrument 16 a for all transactions with allmerchants 14. It will be appreciated that the payment instruments 16 ofthe consumer 12 can be rearranged to the various merchants 14 accordingto the consumer's preferences and under consideration of the promotionaloffers.

In some embodiments, issuer financial institutions 30 may collaboratewith merchants 14 to provide promotional offers to consumers 12.Furthermore, only a selection of consumer payment instruments 16 issuedby the issuer financial institutions 30 are eligible for the promotionaloffers. For example, Citibank may offer a 2% cash rebate for alltransactions with merchants 14 using Citibank's Citi Cash Back Cardduring a predefined duration. The selection of consumer paymentinstruments 16 may be further narrowed to a selection of consumers 12instead of all the consumers 12 who has the Citi Cash Back Card. Forexample, the selection may be narrowed based on the credit scores of heconsumers 12. Consumers 12 with credit scores below a predefinedthreshold will not be eligible for the promotional offer, even thoughthey may have the Citi Cash Back Card.

Similarly, the issuer financial institutions 30 communicate with theintermediary financial entity 20 to provide details of the promotionaloffers. The details of each promotional offer may include at least oneof a duration of the promotional offer, details of eligible merchants 14in the promotional offer, and details of eligible consumer paymentinstruments 16. Following the previous example, details of eligibleconsumer payment instruments 16 include credit card details of all or aselection of the Citi Cash Back Cards issued by Citibank.

The server 100 verifies the details of eligible consumer paymentinstruments 16 against the consumer database 60. Specifically, theserver 100 verifies whether the eligible consumer payment instruments 16are already stored on the consumer database 60, and identifies theconsumers 12 who are eligible for the promotional offers. The server 100then updates the consumer database 60 with the details of thepromotional offers for these eligible consumer payment instruments 16and eligible consumers 12. After updating the consumer database 60, theserver 100 communicates an update message to the eligible consumers 12that there are updates to the promotional offers. The eligible consumers12 will be able to retrieve details of the promotional offers forhis/her payment instruments 16 using the digital wallet 152. Based onthe promotional offer details, the eligible consumers 12 may prefer touse different eligible payment instruments 16 for the various eligiblemerchants 14.

Therefore, by using the method 400 as described in various embodimentsherein, the consumer 12 can conveniently use different consumer paymentinstruments 16 for transactions with different merchants 14, such as tomaximize reward benefits offered by the issuer financial institutions 30for the consumer payment instruments 16. Furthermore, the consumer 12does not have to carry multiple payment instruments 16 whenever he/sheis outside, since the payment instruments 16 can be associated with acommon virtual payment token 18 that is linked to the digital wallet152. The consumer 12 can conveniently activate the digital wallet 152 onthe consumer electronic device 150 to transact with merchants 14.

Technical Architecture

The following is a description of the technical architecture of theserver 100 with reference to FIG. 5.

The technical architecture of the server 100 includes a processor 102(also referred to as a central processor unit or CPU) that is incommunication with memory devices including secondary storage 104 (suchas disk drives or memory cards), read only memory (ROM) 106, and randomaccess memory (RAM) 108. The processor 102 may be implemented as one ormore CPU chips. Various modules or components for performing variousoperations or steps of the methods 200/300/400 are configured as part ofthe processor 102 and such operations or steps are performed in responseto non-transitory instructions operative or executed by the processor102.

The technical architecture further includes input/output (I/O) devices110, and network connectivity devices 112. The secondary storage 104typically includes a memory card or other storage device and is used fornon-volatile storage of data and as an over-flow data storage device ifRAM 108 is not large enough to hold all working data. Secondary storage104 may be used to store programs which are loaded into RAM 108 whensuch programs are selected for execution.

The secondary storage 104 has a processing component 114, includingnon-transitory instructions operative by the processor 102 to performvarious operations or steps of the methods 200/300/400 according tovarious embodiments of the present disclosure. The ROM 106 is used tostore instructions and perhaps data which are read during programexecution. The secondary storage 104, the ROM 106, and/or the RAM 108may be referred to in some contexts as computer-readable storage mediaand/or non-transitory computer-readable media. Non-transitorycomputer-readable media include all computer-readable media, with thesole exception being a transitory propagating signal per se.

The I/O devices 110 may include printers, video monitors, liquid crystaldisplays (LCDs), plasma displays, touch screen displays, keyboards,keypads, switches, dials, mice, track balls, voice recognizers, cardreaders, paper tape readers, and/or other known input devices.

The network connectivity devices 112 may take the form of modems, modembanks, Ethernet cards, universal serial bus (USB) interface cards,serial interfaces, token ring cards, fibre distributed data interface(FDDI) cards, wireless local area network (WLAN) cards, radiotransceiver cards that promote radio communications using protocols suchas code division multiple access (CDMA), global system for mobilecommunications (GSM), long-term evolution (LTE), worldwideinteroperability for microwave access (WiMAX), near field communication(NFC), radio frequency identity (RFID), and/or other air interfaceprotocol radio transceiver cards, and other known network devices. Thesenetwork connectivity devices 112 may enable the processor 102 tocommunicate with the Internet or one or more intranets. With such anetwork connection, it is contemplated that the processor 102 mightreceive information from the network, or might output information to thenetwork in the course of performing the operations or steps of themethods 200/300/400. Such information, which is often represented as asequence of instructions to be executed using processor 102, may bereceived from and outputted to the network, for example, in the form ofa computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave.

The processor 102 executes instructions, codes, computer programs,scripts which it accesses from hard disk, floppy disk, optical disk(these various disk based systems may all be considered secondarystorage 104), flash drive, ROM 106, RAM 108, or the network connectivitydevices 112. While only one processor 102 is shown, multiple processorsmay be present. Thus, while instructions may be discussed as executed bya processor, the instructions may be executed simultaneously, serially,or otherwise executed by one or multiple processors.

It will be appreciated that the technical architecture of the server 100may be formed by one computer, or multiple computers in communicationwith each other that collaborate to perform a task. For example, but notby way of limitation, an application may be partitioned in such a way asto permit concurrent and/or parallel processing of the instructions ofthe application. Alternatively, the data processed by the applicationmay be partitioned in such a way as to permit concurrent and/or parallelprocessing of different portions of a data set by the multiplecomputers. In an embodiment, virtualization software may be employed bythe technical architecture to provide the functionality of a number ofservers that is not directly bound to the number of computers in thetechnical architecture. In an embodiment, the functionality disclosedabove may be provided by executing the application and/or applicationsin a cloud computing environment. Cloud computing may include providingcomputing services via a network connection using dynamically scalablecomputing resources. A cloud computing environment may be established byan enterprise and/or may be hired on an as-needed basis from a thirdparty provider.

It is understood that by programming and/or loading executableinstructions onto the technical architecture of the server 100, at leastone of the CPU 102, the ROM 106, and the RAM 108 are changed,transforming the technical architecture in part into a specific purposemachine or apparatus having the functionality as taught by variousembodiments of the present disclosure. It is fundamental to theelectrical engineering and software engineering arts that functionalitythat can be implemented by loading executable software into a computercan be converted to a hardware implementation by known design rules.

In the foregoing detailed description, embodiments of the presentdisclosure in relation to an electronic system and method fortransaction processing are described with reference to the providedfigures. The description of the various embodiments herein is notintended to call out or be limited only to specific or particularrepresentations of the present disclosure, but merely to illustratenon-limiting examples of the present disclosure. The present disclosureserves to address at least one of the mentioned problems and issuesassociated with the prior art. Although only some embodiments of thepresent disclosure are disclosed herein, it will be apparent to a personhaving ordinary skill in the art in view of this disclosure that avariety of changes and/or modifications can be made to the disclosedembodiments without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.Therefore, the scope of the disclosure as well as the scope of thefollowing claims is not limited to embodiments described herein.

1. An electronic system for processing a transaction between a consumerand a merchant with a payment instrument of the consumer selected forthe merchant, the system comprising a server configured for performingsteps comprising: receiving, from an acquirer financial institution forthe merchant, details of the transaction and a common virtual paymenttoken, the transaction details comprising details of the merchant;retrieving, from a consumer database, identification details of a set ofconsumer payment instruments associated with the common virtual paymenttoken; selecting, from the set of consumer payment instruments, theconsumer payment instrument for the merchant based on the merchantdetails; retrieving, from the consumer database, payment details of theselected consumer payment instrument; and processing the transactionwith the selected consumer payment instrument, said transactionprocessing comprising communicating, to an issuer financial institutionfor the selected consumer payment instrument, the transaction detailsand the payment details of the selected consumer payment instrument. 2.The system according to claim 1, wherein the merchant details comprisean identifier and one or more merchant category codes of the merchant.3. The system according to claim 2, wherein each consumer paymentinstrument is associated with a set of merchant identifiers and/ormerchant category codes, and is selectable based on the merchantidentifiers and/or merchant category codes of the merchant.
 4. Thesystem according to claim 1, wherein the identification details of theset of consumer payment instruments comprise virtual payment instrumenttokens.
 5. The system according to claim 1, the steps further comprisingreceiving, from one or more issuer financial institutions, details ofone or more promotional offers.
 6. The system according to claim 5,wherein the details of each promotional offer comprise at least one of(i) details of eligible merchants in the promotional offer, (ii) detailsof eligible consumer payment instruments in the promotional offer, and(iii) a duration of the promotional offer.
 7. The system according toclaim 6, the steps further comprising verifying the details of eligibleconsumer payment instruments against the consumer database.
 8. Thesystem according to claim 5, the steps further comprising updating theconsumer database with the details of the promotional offers.
 9. Thesystem according to claim 1, the steps further comprising performing aconsumer registration procedure comprising: receiving, from anelectronic device of the consumer, registration details of the set ofconsumer payment instruments; generating the common virtual paymenttoken; associating the set of consumer payment instruments with thecommon virtual payment token; and communicating the common virtualpayment token to the consumer electronic device.
 10. The systemaccording to claim 9, the consumer registration procedure furthercomprising generating a set of virtual payment instrument tokens for theset of consumer payment instruments.
 11. The system according to claim9, wherein the registration details comprise at least one merchantidentifier and/or at least one merchant category code for each consumerpayment instrument, such that each consumer payment instrument isselectable based on the merchant identifiers and/or merchant categorycodes.
 12. The system according to claim 11, the consumer registrationprocedure further comprising communicating, to the consumer electronicdevice, a set of merchant identifiers and/or merchant category codes forallocation by the consumer to the consumer payment instruments in theregistration details.
 13. A computerized method for processing atransaction between a consumer and a merchant with a payment instrumentof the consumer selected for the merchant, the method performed by aserver and comprising: receiving, from an acquirer financial institutionfor the merchant, details of the transaction and a common virtualpayment token, the transaction details comprising details of themerchant; retrieving, from a consumer database, identification detailsof a set of consumer payment instruments associated with the commonvirtual payment token; selecting, from the set of consumer paymentinstruments, the consumer payment instrument for the merchant based onthe merchant details; retrieving, from the consumer database, paymentdetails of the selected consumer payment instrument; and processing thetransaction with the selected consumer payment instrument, saidtransaction processing comprising communicating, to an issuer financialinstitution for the selected consumer payment instrument, thetransaction details and the payment details of the selected consumerpayment instrument.
 14. The method according to claim 13, wherein themerchant details comprise an identifier and one or more merchantcategory codes of the merchant.
 15. The method according to claim 14,wherein each consumer payment instrument is associated with a set ofmerchant identifiers and/or merchant category codes, and is selectablebased on the merchant identifiers and/or merchant category codes of themerchant.
 16. The method according to claim 13, the steps furthercomprising receiving, from one or more issuer financial institutions,details of one or more promotional offers.
 17. The method according toclaim 16, wherein the details of each promotional offer comprise atleast one of (i) details of eligible merchants in the promotional offer,(ii) details of eligible consumer payment instruments in the promotionaloffer, and (iii) a duration of the promotional offer.
 18. The systemaccording to claim 17, the steps further comprising verifying thedetails of eligible consumer payment instruments against the consumerdatabase.
 19. The system according to claim 18, the steps furthercomprising updating the consumer database with the details of thepromotional offer.
 20. A non-transitory computer-readable storage mediumstoring computer-readable instructions that, when executed, cause aserver to perform steps of a method according to claim 13.